Climate Change Resilience
Pacific Climate Scientists from throughout the Region are in Tonga this week on the invitation of the Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Siaosi Sovaleni and the Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications (MEIDECC) of the Government of Tonga to launch a new project that will provide nationally-tailored information on seasonal climate prediction to improve climate services in the Pacific Islands.

Funded by the Government of the Republic of Korea, the Pacific Islands Climate Prediction Services Project (ROK PI-CLIPS) will be the focus of the three day regional training and inception workshop co-hosted by MEIDECC, SPREP and the Korea based APEC Climate Centre.

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The project implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and APEC Climate Center (APCC) aims to strengthen the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities to climate risks in the seasonal timescale, through strengthening the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS's) across the region. The project will run for 3 years until 2017.

"We will be developing tailored climate prediction information using a region-specific tool so that our National Meteorological Services are able to contribute to community resilience and national development planning through better localized climate services," said Mr. Sunny Seuseu, the ROK PI-CLIPS Project Coordinator at SPREP.

"We'll achieve this by helping our National Meteorological Services access and use specific seasonal climate predictions systems tuned to island environments, analyse and review the information which can then be shared to help support decision making processes in local communities and climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, health and disaster risk management."

The three year project spans the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The ROK PI-CLIPS regional training and inception workshop leads to the Pacific Meteorological Council (PMC) Meeting which is the meeting of Meteorological Service Directors in the Region hosted in the Kingdom of Tonga from 20 to 23 July followed by the First Pacific Ministerial Meeting on Meteorology on July 24.

"Tonga is very pleased to be part of this project that will bring together a range of partners across the Region and beyond to help strengthen our decision making processes, allowing us to take into account seasonal climate predictions when it comes to planning, especially now that we are in an El Nino year," said Mr. 'Ofa Fa'anunu, Director of the Tonga Meteorological Service.

"It's also an honor for us to host the PMC and our Pacific Island Ministers in this milestone event, the very first time for a Ministerial component to be held. It comes at a very important time for Tonga after the Coronation of our King and Queen and we look forward to some concrete outcomes."

The inception workshop will be held from 15 to 17 July, 2015.